


Before The Rooster's Crow

by AndreaLyn



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:31:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Don't you trust me?"</i> Three times, three ways, three betrayals that Cobb planted the seeds of an idea for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before The Rooster's Crow

In the end, he should have seen this coming.

Arthur had warned him. There had been a chance for Cobb to take another path -- there are other thieves -- but Cobb had ignored all good sense. Worse, Cobb’s allowed him an ally in Yusuf and so who knows what the chemicals are laced with so that Eames has an escape route if it comes down to that? It doesn’t, but Cobb should have paid closer attention to these things.

(It’s hard to notice anything in the waking world when you’re busy inviting on the haunting embrace of the dreaming one)

In the end, he can only blame himself. Cobb is the architect of his own demise.

They had sent Eames to Fischer-Morrow where, unwittingly, Cobb began sowing the seeds of his undoing. How is he to know that this is the move that topples his King in this intricate game of life and death? How is he to know that Eames will decide that one corporate beneficiary is as good as the next, and how is he to know that Eames’ relationship with his own father gives them something to connect over.

Arthur knows, but Arthur is busy breaking in Ariadne with curves and corners, paradox and puzzle (not to mention Arthur’s infuriating fascination with baiting and ignoring Eames in turns means that he misses the larger danger in plain sight).

“You have to understand,” Eames is explaining as he helps to shuttle Robert off to a safe taxi, clad in the self-same suit that Cobb is wearing – strange, that Cobb is bleeding on the gritty pavements of a dream-world and staring up at a sartorial twin. “It was never personal, Dom.”

“Seems pretty fucking personal right now, Eames,” Cobb grits out, using both hands to assuage the steady bleeding in his lower leg. It’s a shot that will bleed, but heal easily. It’s a shot that will keep him put, but keep him safe from the shores of his own depths. “You shot me.”

“Fischer offered me better money. That’s all.”

Eames levels the gun at his head and Cobb sees what’s coming. He struggles as his protests gain volume and heat, desperation flooding him as the prospect of going back to limbo becomes more real by the second.

“Eames. Eames! Don’t do this!” Dom protests, struggling against the coarse rope that Eames has bound him with. “We’re heavily sedated; killing me won’t wake me up.”

Eames gives him a sad smile.

And Dom realizes…

Eames says, “I know,” and pulls the trigger.

*

“You don’t understand.”

Cobb lies on a beach with the vestiges of his consciousness seemingly so distant and yet he knows precisely where he is, knows who the woman above him is, and recognizes the gun in her hand. It’s his and he can recall every move that’s brought him to this place with distinct clarity.

She fired – he pleaded – she reasoned – he shouted – she disarmed him with little more than a ball of yarn in a maze. Maybe it didn’t happen in that order, but the events are inconsequential – the consequences are all that matter.

“You need to wake up,” she begs.

He searches through the maze for a thread and when he finds it, he tracks it back to a name. “Ariadne!” he shouts above the crashing waves on the beach. “This is the dream. This is what we need to wake up from.”

Ariadne’s hand is shaking and she buries it in her soaking hair. “He said you’d do this,” she protests brokenly. “Miles said you would do this, Mal warned me about this.”

“She’s dead. You know that. She jumped. I told you what happened, I told you how I lost her.”

“She woke up,” Ariadne protests heatedly. “Cobb, you never made it. You ascended through the levels, but you fell short and that’s why they sent me down here. I’m here to get you out of the maze. This time, this time, I won’t let you fall short.”

“You’re insane,” Cobb protests, sizing up the environment and his chances. Somewhere, Saito is lingering in this limbo, but there are more pressing dangers in front of them and wielding a gun. “Ariadne, listen to yourself. Whatever you convinced yourself about this world, it’s not real.”

She’s focusing hard and Cobb understands why – even as he tries to hold onto his reason for being there, it begins to slip away (receding like the waves trying to pull him deeper into the looming ocean). They’re both fighting the same war, on opposite sides.

“I made a promise and I intend to see it through,” is all she says, aligning the gun with Cobb’s temple. “It was never your totem, Cobb. It was never yours, but you deluded yourself into thinking you’d found yourself a reality.”

He watches her form apology on her lips.

It’s the last thing he sees before she pulls the trigger and the waves overpower Cobb. He’s pulled deeper into the darkness; whether he’s ascending towards reality or slipping further into the dream, he can’t say. He’s lost track of the thread in the maze and the labyrinth has won.

*

Cobb brought the train through the streets of New York, but the havoc that encircles them is born of Fischer’s mind – the knife in his back, however, is courtesy of Arthur in the midst of their dingy safe house. “Get his legs,” he’s coaxing Yusuf. “Eames, help me.”

“What about Saito?” Eames asks, fetching the rope without argument.

Cobb struggles against the hold Arthur and Yusuf have on him, staring at Arthur in incredulous disbelief that his trust in Cobb has finally snapped.

“Leave him, for now.”

“Guys, are you sure?” Ariadne is hovering and while she’s the voice of doubt, she’s not helping. In fact, Cobb worries that with every sidelong look in his direction, she’s going to tell them more – more information than who brought the train crashing through the dreamscape. “I mean, it’s one thing not to trust him, but we’re surrounded by hostile projections. We can’t be focusing on this right now.”

“Ariadne, who brought in the train?” Arthur demands.

“Well…” Cobb sees the instant her resolve hardens and he knows there’s no hope for him. “Cobb did.”

“And what does that mean as we go deeper?” As if they’re nothing more than teacher and student, yet --

Miss Ariadne, please describe to me the full consequences of an unwelcome projection within the dream.

Why, of course, Professor. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to use Dominic Cobb as my cautionary tale… --

“Eames, his legs,” Arthur snaps.

Cobb is acutely aware that both Arthur and Eames come from a military background, but it’s never clearer than when they’re working in tacit tandem to accomplish a goal. The knots that bind Cobb are tight and he doesn’t think he can work his way out of them. At this rate, the projections are going to get him. He’s going to be fodder for Fischer’s militaristic mindscape.

He struggles as the others convene in a tight circle, whispering furiously between them.

“I don’t care what we do, but he’s not coming with us,” Arthur is getting gradually louder.

“He’ll just wake up the instant they kill him,” Eames says, offering the voice of reason.

Cobb’s head falls the moment that Yusuf clears his throat. It seems that money can buy silence, but it can’t buy loyalty. Yusuf isn’t helping; he’s just as responsible for the dagger in Cobb’s back as the rest of them. “No. He won’t.”

“He won’t what?” Arthur heatedly replies.

“He wakes up,” says Eames. “If you die in the dream, you wake up.”

Yusuf clears his throat again.

Cobb lifts his head in time to see Eames, Arthur, and Ariadne acting in synchronicity in their looks – fear and disbelief tinged with genuine panic – and he knows that this is it. This is the tipping point that he won’t come back from.

“If we stay, we all die,” Arthur says. “If he comes, we descend to...what, limbo?”

Yusuf nods.

Arthur turns towards Cobb and takes the four steps necessary to bridge the distance between them. Insistently, he leans forward, straining against his bonds and trying to work himself free. Outside, the gunshots are drawing closer and Eames hasn’t started to work on Fischer. “Arthur, don’t you trust me?”

Of all of them, of every person on this team, Arthur is the one he thought he could trust until the very end. Now, as they share a silent stare, he knows he never should have taken that for granted. Cobb’s accusations are still hot on his tongue and a good point man isn’t going to ignore a second security breach. Arthur’s one of the best.

Cobb’s fate is already written.

“We have to go deeper,” Arthur says, not taking his gaze off of Cobb for a moment. “And Cobb’s not coming with us. Yusuf, keep him with you. Make sure...” He shakes his head, rendered speechless. “I don’t even know. Eames, get to work. You’ve got an hour.”

“I was supposed to have all night.”

“Plans changed.”

Eames hurries off to prepare, Ariadne to check Saito, and Yusuf to get the van ready. It leaves Arthur and Cobb alone, Fischer’s voice echoing through the walls of the warehouse and mingled with Saito’s rare cries of pain.

“Arthur, you trusted me through so much more than this. You didn’t believe them when they said I killed her. You worked by my side,” Cobb argues, trying to fight his way out with reason. “Why this? Why now?”

“Because this is my job,” Arthur replies curtly. “You’re a security risk to this operation and in order for everyone to come out alive, I’m taking over. I’m sorry,” he adds, under his breath, “but you can’t do this to us, Cobb. I don’t trust you. I should have stopped trusting you the day she died, but I didn’t and that’s my fault.” He checks his gun, pulling on the black ski-mask. “Maybe you’ll never work with me again after this, maybe you’ll thank me. Right now, I have work to do. You’re out, Cobb. We’ll see it through.”

He walks away as Cobb struggles, shouting over the gunfire and Fischer’s protests. “This is my ticket home! This is my way back to my family! I need to do this!”

“No, Cobb,” Arthur calls over his shoulder. “You have to accept this.”

Even the smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can grow to define or destroy you.

And without a single doubt, this idea has grown to destroy him.


End file.
